This case study outlines the results of a 10-week social media management campaign for Park’s Place Smokehouse that focused on increasing community awareness and online engagement to boost total sales. This spanned from October to December 2025.
This campaign used Instagram as its main social media platform, with a strong emphasis on Google reviews. While Instagram was the only platform with posts, content for Facebook, Threads, and TikTok was also created to demonstrate to the client what community engagement could look like should they choose to expand to other platforms in the future.
The key performance indicators used to measure success throughout the campaign were content views, new followers, and Google reviews.
The campaign resulted in 58,495 content views, 100 new followers, and 38 Google reviews, achieving the initial goal to increase community awareness and online engagement.
Campaign Background
Park’s Place Smokehouse is founded, owned, and operated by Aaron Park, a local veteran who had a shack and a dream to bring delicious barbecue creations to the people of Rexburg, Idaho. Alongside his two employees, Aaron and his team are open five days a week to deliver incredible food and unmatched customer service.
Park’s Place Smokehouse is a local hidden treasure in the small town of Rexburg, Idaho. The recipients of Idaho’s Best in 2024 and 2025 are located right off of Main Street; their prime location should be an automatic road to success.
The unfortunate reality, however, is that many Rexburg locals have never even heard of this delicious BBQ shack. Park’s Place Smokehouse is hidden behind some rather tall buildings, meaning that the beloved barbecue is unseen by many drivers throughout the town.
Key Performance Indicators
One of the biggest challenges facing Park’s Place Smokehouse is its direct competitor, Spark’s Barbecue. Located less than a quarter mile down Main Street, the two Barbecue joints have painfully similar names. Unfortunately, the client has reported countless instances in which customers or DoorDashers arrived requesting Sparks and, upon arrival, found they were in the wrong location. This brand confusion within Rexburg was one of my main considerations when determining key performance indicators (KPIs).
The client also expressed a concern about Google reviews in our first meeting. The restaurant previously had a perfect five stars, but a recent bad review dropped it down to 4.9 stars. In order to move forward from this, the client and I set a goal to increase by 50 five-star Google reviews throughout my ten-week period of working together. The campaign began with 633 Google reviews.
The KPIs I determined would best address Park’s Place’s lack of awareness were total content views, new followers, and new Google reviews.
Content Strategy
When developing my content strategy, I focused on three main content pillars to increase community awareness about Park’s Place Smokehouse.
- “Brag About It” Posts – The client has a certain confidence about his business that I aimed to exude in the content. “Brag About It” posts are all about showcasing the unique selling propositions at Park’s Place Smokehouse. Specifically, this content regularly highlights the fact that Park’s Place Smokehouse is the 2024 and 2025 recipient of the Idaho’s Best award.
- “Did You Know” Posts – “Did You Know” posts are focused on educating Rexburg’s public on the existence and uniqueness of Park’s Place. While these posts were overall less engaging, they were tailored to a specific audience that would actually purchase food at the restaurant. “Did You Know” posts are effective in helping Rexburg know where this place is and what it has to offer.
- “Keep It Real” Posts – “Keep It Real” posts are all about humor and relatability. In order to build trust and awareness in the community, I focused on creating content that would make viewers think “that could be me.” Trending audios were often used to emphasize the relatability aspect. This content was overwhelmingly the most successful in engagement and views.
With a consistent mix of all three content types, the client and I felt confident in the potential to hit these KPIs and increase the overall community awareness of this delicious local barbecue.
Instagram Campaign Results
Throughout posting, I quickly learned that reels were by far the highest viewed and most engaging posts, which aligns with Instagram’s general trends. The “Keep It Real” posts, in general, were the most engaging content.
Conclusion
This campaign proved that focused efforts to specific KPIs will yield positive results in other aspects. With a calculated emphasis on content views, new followers, and Google reviews, this campaign successfully increased community awareness and overall online presence.
With these content pillars in place and an increased following audience, Park’s Place Smokehouse is well-equipped to move forward in its social media engagement and Google review improvements.